New York City’s pizza culture runs deeper than its subway system, with generations of pizzaioli crafting distinctive slices that reflect neighborhood history, immigrant heritage, and culinary innovation. From century-old establishments to modern artisans, the city offers a pizza education that reveals as much about New York as it does about the perfect balance of crust, sauce, and cheese.
Here is a list of 15 iconic pizza slices that deserve your attention before you exit this mortal coil.
The Original at Lombardi’s
America’s first pizzeria, established in 1905, serves coal-fired pies that connect modern diners directly to Italian-American immigrant history through techniques preserved for over a century. While technically not sold by the slice (a minor rule-bend for this list), the small pies with slightly charred crusts and bright tomato sauce represent pizza ground zero for the entire country. The sparse application of fresh mozzarella and basil follows Neapolitan tradition, allowing each ingredient’s quality to shine through rather than hiding behind excessive toppings.
The historic Little Italy location adds to the experience, with tight quarters and occasional lines creating an atmosphere that feels remarkably unchanged despite the neighborhood’s evolution around it.
Classic Slice at Joe’s Pizza
This Greenwich Village institution represents the platonic ideal of the New York street slice—a thin, foldable crust with the perfect ratio of tangy sauce to melted mozzarella that allows for the quintessential “fold and walk” technique. Since 1975, the original Carmine Street location has served celebrities, tourists, and late-night revelers seeking pizza perfection unaltered by trends or gimmicks. The distinctive orange-tinged oil that pools atop the cheese provides the signature flavor that locals instantly recognize as authentic New York pizza.
Crowds provide excellent people-watching as Wall Street suits, NYU students, and neighborhood characters all participate in the same democratic dining experience.
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Spicy Spring Slice at Prince Street Pizza
This relatively recent addition to the pizza landscape has quickly achieved legendary status through its distinctive upside-down square slice featuring crispy cupped pepperoni atop cheese that sits beneath the sauce. The Nolita shop operates from the former location of the original Ray’s Pizza, maintaining the space’s pizza heritage while creating something entirely new.
The caramelized edges of the thick Sicilian-style crust provide textural contrast to the spicy tomato sauce, while the natural pepperoni cups fill with their own rendered fat during baking to create flavor explosions with each bite.
The perpetual line outside this tiny storefront testifies to its rapid ascension into the pizza pantheon despite fierce competition throughout the city.
Plain Slice at Di Fara Pizza
Dom DeMarco hand-crafted each pizza at this Midwood, Brooklyn institution from 1965 until his passing in 2022, creating a culinary pilgrimage site worth the lengthy subway journey from Manhattan. The meticulous process involves snipping fresh basil over each pie and drizzling imported olive oil in a final flourish that elevates simple ingredients into transcendent flavor combinations. The extended cooking time in ancient ovens creates a crust with complex flavor development rarely achieved in faster operations, while the blend of fresh and aged mozzarella provides both creamy texture and sharp flavor notes.
Though the patriarch is gone, his family continues the legacy, preserving both technique and quality.
Vodka Slice at Rubirosa
This multigenerational family recipe originated at Joe & Pat’s on Staten Island before finding a Manhattan home in Nolita, where the ultra-thin crust serves as the perfect canvas for vodka sauce—a creamy, slightly spicy tomato creation. The sauce achieves perfect consistency, neither too loose nor too thick, clinging to the crust while allowing the delicate texture to maintain its integrity with each bite. The distinctive cross-cut pattern creates smaller, more manageable pieces that encourage communal dining experiences where multiple pizza styles can be sampled in a single sitting.
The restaurant’s cozy, wood-paneled interior adds to the experience, creating an atmosphere that balances traditional Italian-American comfort with downtown sophistication.
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White Slice at Best Pizza
This Williamsburg establishment operated by Brooklyn pizza royalty Frank Pinello distinguishes itself through wood-fired ovens and exceptional attention to ingredient sourcing, particularly evident in their white slice. Fresh ricotta applied in dollops rather than an even layer creates pockets of creamy richness against a backdrop of caramelized onions, pecorino cheese, and a semolina-dusted crust that provides textural contrast. The woodsmoke permeates both crust and toppings, adding complexity that connects this modern establishment to ancient bread-baking traditions predating modern ovens.
The minimalist storefront, with its paper plate artwork from customers, creates an unpretentious atmosphere that lets the food remain the focus.
Pepperoni Square at L&B Spumoni Gardens
This Bensonhurst institution has served its distinctive Sicilian-style squares since 1939, creating a Brooklyn tradition that draws multigenerational families to its sprawling outdoor seating area during summer months. The unorthodox construction places the tangy sauce atop the cheese rather than beneath it, creating a distinctive layering that has been widely imitated but rarely matched. The thick, focaccia-like crust develops a crisp bottom while maintaining a light, airy interior structure that defies the common density of lesser Sicilian slices.
The accompanying spumoni ice cream represents an equally important tradition, creating a complete experience that feels unchanged by decades of food trends.
Grandma Slice at King Umberto’s
This Long Island-born style has conquered the city with its distinctive thin rectangular shape and slightly undercooked center that creates a unique textural experience between traditional New York and Sicilian styles. The sauce applied in irregular dollops rather than an even layer creates flavor variations across each bite, while the garlic-infused oil permeates the crust to create aromatic complexity. The cheese, applied with restraint, browns perfectly at the edges while maintaining creamy centers in a pattern that experienced pizza lovers recognize as the mark of proper baking technique.
The suburban origins of this style reflect the migration patterns of Italian-American families from city neighborhoods to outlying areas during the mid-20th century.
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Artichoke Slice at Artichoke Basille’s
This East Village creation quickly expanded to multiple locations through the sheer audacity of its signature slice—a thick, creamy, artichoke dip-inspired topping on sturdy Sicilian crust capable of supporting its substantial weight. The spinach-artichoke cream sauce provides such richness that even dedicated eaters rarely manage more than a single slice, making this perhaps the most filling pizza experience in a city known for generous portions.
The combination of multiple cheeses, including pecorino, mozzarella, and cream cheese, creates a complexity that elevates this beyond simple novelty to become a legitimate pizza category of its own.
The late-night hours of most locations ensure that this slice has become a traditional post-revelry meal for multiple generations of night owls.
Buffalo Chicken Slice at Paulie Gee’s Slice Shop
This Greenpoint establishment bridges traditional New York slice culture with contemporary culinary creativity through unexpected but coherent flavor combinations. The Buffalo chicken variation combines the bar food favorite with pizza fundamentals, using Frank’s Red Hot sauce as the acidic element that would traditionally come from tomatoes. The blue cheese substitutes perfectly for the conventional mozzarella’s creamy component while adding funky depth typically absent from standard slices.
The Slice Shop’s distinct operation, separate from the original Paulie Gee’s restaurant, demonstrates respect for different pizza traditions, with the slice format getting dedicated space rather than becoming an afterthought to whole pies. The retro décor completes the experience, creating a space that feels simultaneously nostalgic and contemporary.
Vodka Sicilian at Scarr’s Pizza
This Lower East Side pizzeria distinguishes itself through flour milled in-house daily, creating crusts with freshness and nutritional complexity impossible with commercial alternatives sitting in warehouse storage. The Sicilian format provides a substantial structure for supporting the vodka sauce—a perfect balance of cream, tomato acidity, and subtle heat that has become a New York pizza staple since the 1970s.
The cheese, applied with mathematical precision, achieves the perfect distribution across the sauce without creating soggy patches or barren zones that plague lesser establishments.
The modern-retro aesthetic of wood paneling and orange booths creates an atmosphere that honors pizza history while establishing new traditions.
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Burnt Pepperoni Slice at Patsy’s Pizzeria
This East Harlem institution, dating to 1933, represents one of the city’s oldest continuously operating pizzerias, using coal-fired ovens grandfathered into building codes that would prohibit their construction today. The intense heat—reaching nearly 1,000 degrees—creates distinctive leopard-spotted char patterns on both crust and pepperoni, caramelizing proteins and fats to create flavor compounds impossible at lower temperatures. The exceptionally thin crust maintains structural integrity despite minimal thickness through perfect flour selection and handling techniques passed through generations of pizza makers.
The no-frills atmosphere of the original First Avenue location provides an authentic connection to pizza history, unlike the more commercialized experiences at expansion locations.
The Saint Louie at Speedy Romeo
This creative Clinton Hill establishment, housed in a former auto body shop embraces regional American pizza styles beyond New York, with their Saint Louie pizza representing the distinctive approach from Missouri. The cracker-thin crust provides a brittle foundation for Provel cheese—a processed combination of cheddar, Swiss, and provolone virtually unknown outside St. Louis but perfectly calibrated for optimal melting properties. The unconventional choice of Italian sausage, pepperoni, and pickled chilies creates a comprehensive flavor profile that hits every taste receptor, from salty to spicy to tangy.
The hipster-industrial aesthetic with exposed kitchen operations allows diners to observe the brick oven cooking process that connects this modern interpretation to ancient traditions.
Clam Pie at Lombardi’s
This New Haven-inspired creation pays homage to Connecticut’s distinctive contribution to American pizza culture, with briny chopped clams, garlic, parsley, and lemon complementing the minimal application of cheese. The coal-fired cooking method creates the perfect environment for developing the clams’ natural sweetness while evaporating excess moisture that would otherwise compromise the crust’s integrity.
The white pie format allows the delicate flavor of the shellfish to shine without tomato acidity masking its subtle oceanic notes. The century-old oven itself contributes flavor compounds absorbed into its brick lining over decades of continuous operation, creating a cooking environment impossible to replicate in newer establishments.
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Burrata Slice at Williamsburg Pizza
This Brooklyn establishment elevates the traditional Margherita formula by replacing standard mozzarella with creamy burrata, creating a textural contrast between the soft cheese center and the sturdy, lightly charred crust. The fresh basil appears not as the typical scattered leaves but as an aromatic oil drizzled over the finished product, distributing the herb’s volatile compounds more evenly across each bite. The bright red sauce, applied with precision, peeks through the islands of white cheese in a visually striking pattern that signals attention to aesthetic detail matching the flavor development.
The simple storefront belies the sophistication of the product, creating an accessible entry point to artisanal pizza without pretension.
New York’s Enduring Pizza Legacy
These fifteen slices represent merely the beginning of a pizza journey through a city where heated debates about crust thickness, oven types, and proper cheese application have continued for generations. Beyond mere sustenance, New York pizza embodies cultural history where immigrant traditions adapted to American ingredients, creating something entirely new yet connected to ancient lineage. From coal-fired ovens operating since the early 20th century to innovative new toppings reflecting contemporary culinary trends, these pizza experiences offer edible history lessons worth undertaking before departing this mortal realm.
The perfect New York slice—whether traditional or innovative—balances texture, temperature, and flavor in a handheld format that allows busy New Yorkers to refuel while remaining in constant motion through their demanding city.
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